Intel Unveils Next-Gen Atom Pinetrail Chips

You may have seen from our front page hardware features that there's a new Intel Atom CPU and platform in town.

The newest Intel Atom platform for netbooks consists of a new 45nm Atom N450, and a new low-power NM10 Express Chipset. For entry level desktop PCs, it consists of either the Atom D410 or the dual core D510, both also made on the 45nm process, also paired with the Intel NM10 Express Chipset.

One of the most significant features of the new platform is the integration of memory controller and graphics into the CPU, a first in the industry on x86 chips. That means two chips (CPU, chipset) instead of the previous three (CPU, chipset, I/O controller hub), a lower TDP, and substantial reductions in cost, overall footprint and power. Intel claims that this new platform features a 20 percent improvement in average power and a smaller package size over the previous Atom platform.

The N450 is a single core Atom processor with 512k of L2 cache and a 7 watt total kit TDP including chipset. The D410 for entry-level desktop PCs is a single-core Atom processor with 512k of L2 cache and a 12-watt total kit TDP including chipset, and the D510 for entry-level desktop PCs is a dual core Atom processor with 1MB L2 cache and a 15-watt total kit TDP including chipset. The new chips all run at 1.66GHz.

Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.